Please feel free to adopt the language for a letter to your senators and representatives in Congress, or to copy this petition, circulate in your congressional district, and send to your Congresspeople.

 PETITION FOR A TRUTH COMMISSION

We, the undersigned, believe

that we will not be able to conquer terrorism until we fully understand the role the United States government has played in creating terrorism;
and that beneath the history of the United States of the last fifty-five years there is a hidden history that includes, but is not limited to, the honoring and arming of dictators and nations who violate human rights and democratic principles, the overthrow of democratically elected officials, and the training on our own U.S. soil of foreign military personnel who have been responsible for massacres, murders, disappearances, and terror in their home countries;
and that knowledge of the truth will set us free to make responsible decisions as we vote, allocate funds, educate our children, determine foreign policy, defend our nation, share our cultural and material wealth, and form alliances globally.

Subsequent to the events of 9/11, President Bush has made it clear that terrorism must be rooted out wherever it is found.  In keeping with that goal, we urge the United States Congress and Executive Branch to establish a bi-partisan Truth Commission made up of congress people, scholars, clergy, NGO personnel, and concerned citizens, whose charge it will be to research and fully disclose all the ways the United States government and its agents have knowingly and unknowingly contributed to the rise of terrorism at home and abroad since the end of WW II.  In addition to public hearings, the findings of the Truth Commission should be published, distributed, and made known to the American public in every conceivable manner. 

The purpose of a Truth Commission inquiry will not be to punish or vilify; rather our hope is to enter a new period in history wherein the United States takes responsibility for its mistakes and rises to a new level of moral leadership for the rest of the world by deciding never again to aid terrorists or condone terrorism or the repression of those seeking justice and democracy.